Field
This disclosure is generally directed to delivering content in a content delivery network (CDN), and more particularly to predicting CDN performance in a crowdsourced manner in order to deliver content with little or no buffering.
Background
In streaming media applications, adaptive bitrate streaming is a technique for adjusting the quality of a movie being delivered over a network based on conditions of the network. For example, if the network is slow, a lower quality version (that is, a lower bit rate version) of the movie is delivered, to reduce buffering. Similarly, if the network is fast, a higher quality version (that is, a higher bit rate version) of the movie can be delivered.
Typically, when starting to stream a movie, the lowest quality version is selected for streaming. This conservative approach is necessary to avoid buffering, particularly when content is distributed over content delivery networks (CDNs) where conditions and performance may vary among the CDNs. But, this conservative approach needlessly results in a poor user viewing experience when current conditions of the network could support a higher bit rate stream.